National alert over massive credit info theft

The Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCert) has issued a national alert to update security systems following the largest theft of credit card numbers in the Internet's history.

AusCert has called on its members to download patches to fix security holes in Microsoft's SQL servers after Russian and Ukrainian crime gangs stole a million credit card numbers from e-commerce sites and online banks around the world.

As reported last week in CW once the credit cards were stolen site operators were blackmailed in a massive international extortion racket which is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).

AusCert said hacker activity targeting e-commerce and e-finance sites has been going on for months despite warnings issued to Australian companies last year.

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